Mission

we're here for you in every community

‘IN the space of just a few days, I went from running a London borough to barely being able to run a bath,’ says John Sutherland, a retired chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police. ‘I had fallen off the edge of the cliff and into the depths of depression. I can only describe it as a thing of raw horror and blind terror.’

ON 15 April 2013 Rebekah Gregory and her young son Noah were watching thousands of runners as they approached the finishing line of the Boston Marathon. At 2.49 pm Noah was sitting on his mum’s feet, playing with rocks on the ground, when a bomb exploded in a man’s backpack behind them. Twelve seconds later there was a second blast. Thrown to the floor, Rebekah’s first thought was that her life was over.

DON’T stress if, despite your best efforts to eat less and exercise more, your new year’s resolution to lose weight hasn’t come to fruition yet. According to a study from Stanford University in the US, when our hormones are disrupted by stress, our bodies convert more cells to fat than they do when our stresses dissipate.

Since 1992 April has been designated Stress Awareness Month. It’s a time when healthcare professionals work to increase public awareness about what has been described as a ‘modern stress epidemic’.

ACHILLES may be dead – but the actor who plays him in the BBC One drama series Troy: Fall of a City is enjoying a career that is alive and kicking. Speaking over the phone from his home, David Gyasi – who is also known for his roles in the films Interstellar and Cloud Atlas – talks to me about faith, fatherhood and why playing a demigod in an ancient Greek drama appealed to him.

MORE than 6,600 athletes from 71 territories have spent months preparing to contest 275 gold medals across 25 sports at the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast.

The event has grown astonishingly since the first Empire Games took place in Canada in 1930 when 400 athletes from 11 countries competed. As the old British Empire gave way, so the Games became a sporting celebration of the faiths, cultures and traditions of the Commonwealth nations, whose citizens represent almost a third of the world’s population.

IF awards were given for the most used words, ‘Brexit’ would have a spectacularly stocked trophy cabinet.

Since the referendum result in June 2016, it has seemed that no newspaper can be published or news bulletin broadcast without containing a story about the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. Anyone who follows the news will be aware of topics such as trade deals, the ‘divorce bill’, cherry-picking and whether Brexit should be hard or soft.

AS we approach another Easter, the message of God’s restorative and redemptive love is as powerful and relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.

The cross is central to our Christian faith and gospel message. It is integral to everything we believe and is our motivation in reaching a dying world with the message of hope, love and salvation. The cross is purposely located at the centre of the Salvation Army crest.

IT was not a normal day. This crucifixion differed from the usual ones.

At least one of the two criminals who were hanging next to Jesus on a hill outside Jerusalem knew that they were receiving the punishment they deserved. Jesus, whose only ‘crime’ had been to upset the authorities, prayed that God would forgive the very people respon­sible for putting him to death.